La. Berry et al., PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTIONS BASED ON SPEECH SAMPLES OF CHILDREN WITH REPAIRED CLEFT PALATES, The Cleft palate-craniofacial journal, 34(5), 1997, pp. 385-389
Objective:This study examined whether or not assumptions made about pe
rsonality characteristics based on speech samples differed for childre
n with repaired cleft palates (CP) versus unaffected children, Design:
Audiotapes of speech samples were presented in random order to blind
raters, Patients/Participants:The subjects were 20 children (In female
s, In males) with repaired CP and 16 control (i.e., unaffected) childr
en (8 females, 8 males). All children were 8 to 12 years of age, Cauca
sian, living in the St. Louis area, and lower-middle to upper-middle c
lass,The raters were 20 (13 females, 7 males) 6th grade Caucasian stud
ents who attend a private school in the area, Setting: Raters heard ta
pes in a group setting, but with individual headphones, in their schoo
l's cafeteria, Main Outcome Measure: Each speech sample was rated (7-p
oint Likert scale) by each student rater on a variety of personality c
haracteristics based on the ''Big Five'' personality factors, Results:
A factor analysis of the items revealed a two-factor solution, althou
gh the factors were highly negatively correlated, No significant diffe
rences were found between ratings for the CP sample and the control sa
mple for either factor scale (ANOVA, p = .93; p = .67), Similarly, whe
n the two factors were combined to form a single factor, no significan
t differences were found between the ratings for the CP sample and the
control sample (ANOVA, p = .79). Conclusions: Overall, it does not ap
pear that children differentially associated personality characteristi
cs based an speech to children with repaired CP versus unaffected chil
dren, in the absence of visual input.